Monday, October 6, 2014

#Wyoming's lawmakers might use law to remove #wolves from endangered species list

A wolf walks through the snow in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Associated Press

10 hours ago

By CHRISTINE PETERSON
Casper Star-Tribune

CASPER, Wyo. — Wyoming’s wolves are
back on the endangered species list again, and this time the state’s
lawmakers might come up with a solution.

Following Montana and
Idaho’s one-of-a-kind legislation, Wyoming’s congressional delegation
said it might look into taking wolves off the list by law, and keeping
them off. “I think we have to consider legislative action now. I
don’t see any other recourse,” said U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis. “We have
done everything the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked of us and
more.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service delisted wolves in Wyoming in
2012, allowing the state to manage them, including overseeing the past
two hunting seasons. Washington, D.C.’s U.S. District Judge Amy Berman
Jackson took control from Wyoming on Sept. 23 and sent it back to the
feds.

Even though wolves were recovered with genetic diversity,
Wyoming’s plan was not adequate to support continued recovery, she
ruled. At issue was a guarantee Wyoming made to keep more than the
minimum number of wolves required by law in the state. Wyoming wrote the
promise in an addendum instead of including it in the formal plan.

The
state filed an emergency rule adding the addendum into the regulation,
but Jackson denied the request Tuesday, telling the Fish and Wildlife
Service to start the delisting process over again. “The fact is
that no matter what we do and no matter how successful we are at
recovering the wolf, certain groups remain unsatisfied and unwilling to
accept victory,” Lummis said. “Now it is time to pursue a legislative
solution.”

Legislation is not the way to solve a local issue with
the Endangered Species Act, said Tim Preso, an attorney for
Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm representing the conservation groups
that sued. “There are always situations where people in specific
areas want to get exceptions from the act for their own localized
interests,” Preso said. “But that doesn’t serve the interest of the
nation as a whole, which is blessed with an incredible wildlife heritage
that still exists today largely as a result of the Endangered Species
Act.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had removed wolves from
the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana in 2009, but a judge
later placed them back on the list, saying wolf populations couldn’t be
separated by state lines. The Fish and Wildlife Service hadn’t proposed
delisting wolves in Wyoming at the time.

A bipartisan coalition in
Montana and Idaho then wrote a delisting item into a budget bill in
2011. It not only returned wolves to state management but also included a
line prohibiting any more judicial review. In essence, it couldn’t be
challenged in court.

President Barack Obama then signed the budget bill, with the wolf portion, into law.
It
was the first time lawmakers had removed an animal from the endangered
species list and prohibited lawsuits. It hasn’t happened since.

“[Idaho
Sen.] Mike Simpson at the time thought it would be more appropriate if
Wyoming — which was on a different legal track than Idaho and Montana
were — I think he was more inclined to pursue legislation for Idaho and
Montana and let Wyoming pursue the litigation route a little longer,”
Lummis said. Spokespersons for both Republican senators John
Barrasso and Mike Enzi said in emails to the Star-Tribune that they
might also support a legislative path to removing wolves from the list.

Wyoming’s
wolf management plan has always been different, and some
conservationists argue, more extreme, than Idaho and Montana’s plans.
Wolves can be shot on sight in Wyoming outside of the state’s northwest
corner. All of Idaho and Montana are divided into hunting areas, which
means hunting is regulated through the states.

Managing wolves
again should not be hard for Wyoming to achieve, Preso said. But the
state needs to control hunting wolves everywhere within its borders. “The reason there was concern is because Wyoming has so much unregulated killing allowed,” Preso said.

Jackson
did not address the predator zone in her ruling, said Brian Nesvik,
wildlife division chief for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. The
bulk of Wyoming’s wolves live inside the trophy area.
“We are
pretty clear on her feelings on the dual status issue,” Nesvik said.
“Both courts have said it’s legitimate and legally sufficient and
haven’t had an issue.”

In the meantime, Wyoming wildlife officials don’t yet know how they will proceed, he said. “The
one thing that is very consistent is everyone is working on this now,”
he said. “It is a high priority, and everyone is looking at ways to most
expediently return management back to the state.”

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone